


Stranger than Fiction

by RishiDiams



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AO3 1 Million, F/M, Family Drama, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 17:44:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1193979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RishiDiams/pseuds/RishiDiams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie Noble's parents have a secret to share with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stranger than Fiction

**Author's Note:**

> This 'what if' scenario has been sitting in my drafts folder for ages in the hopes that I would eventually be able to incorporate it into a longer fic. That's looking like it's not going to happen, so I'm presenting this scene as a one-shot.

"Jamie?" Mum's voice comes through his bedroom door, "Can you meet your dad and me in the kitchen?"

"Yeah, sure, Mum. Just a sec." He closes the small velvet box and shoves it back into his pocket. Since making the final payment on the ring a few weeks earlier he's spent more time looking at it than not, trying to piece together a plan for actually presenting it to his girlfriend Aubrey. He is trying for something traditional without being cliché, romantic but not sappy, memorable but not over-the-top. So far, he's got nothing.

He finds Mum sitting at the kitchen table, Dad hovering nearby. Both of his parents look tense.

"What's up?"

"Have a seat, son."

Jamie forces a laugh as he pulls out the chair across from Mum. "Uh oh. That sounds serious. Whatever it is, I didn't do it."

The corners of Dad's mouth curl upward briefly at the familiar denial. "You're not in trouble, Jamie."

"Oh, good. 'cause I think I'm a bit too old for you to put me over your knee."

Mum spins her tea mug in her hands, the ceramic scraping on the wooden table. "Just sit down, yeah? We have something to tell you. It's... important."

Jamie pauses, his bum a few inches above the chair. "Is everything all right?"

"Nothing's happened." This from Dad, though it's not nearly as comforting a reassurance as it could be.

He sits fully, his heart thudding in his chest. "You guys are starting to scare me."

Mum reaches across the table to take his hand. Hers is warm from the mug and, he realizes, trembling.

"Mum? What's going on?"

Dad pushes off of the counter and rests his hand on Mum's shoulder. Her eyes flutter closed briefly before opening again. "Your dad and I want to share something with you. It's --" She bites her lip. "-- kind of a big deal, but please try to stay calm."

He nods, because there's not much else he can do; his heart has moved into his throat.

Mum takes a deep breath, blurting the words out all in a rush. "Your dad's not exactly Human."

"Not completely Human," Dad corrects gently.

His brow furrowing, Jamie pulls his hand out from Mum's grip. Her hand stays where he left it, an empty claw that closes slowly into a fist before she drags it back across the table.

"You're having me on," he says at last, a relieved smile breaking across his face. "It's a joke."

But Dad is already shaking his head, his lips pressed together in a tight line. "No, son, it's not a joke."

"Of course it's a joke. You saw the engagement ring and decided to have a go at me. I'll admit, you actually had me there for a second."

He starts to get up, but his mother's voice breaks through the room like the crack of glass shattering. "James Peter Noble, sit down."

Jamie sits immediately; twenty-three years old and the effect of his full name still hasn't worn off, apparently. His eyes move from Dad's face to Mum's and back again, their complete lack of humor about this finally sinking in. "You're serious?"

Dad nods.

"Alien? But that's impossible."

The same sad smile drifts across both of their faces.

"I think the word you're looking for is improbable." This from Dad.

"How alien? Like was your mom a --"

"No, nothing like that. It's actually very complicated, but I am mostly Human. Well, Human enough," he adds with a look that clearly means 'for procreation.'

"You know what we do with Torchwood," Mum says. "Is it really that hard to believe?"

Torchwood: Granddad's super secret agency that deals with extraterrestrials. Jamie has met a few of said extraterrestrials. Once, when he was eight, he'd even kept one of them, a purple duck-looking thing, as a pet for a few weeks, until its owner had returned to collect it. Dad officially works in R&D, making alien technology compatible with Human technology, and goes on the rare recovery mission in the field when a find is deemed too dangerous to move, but he's been known to fill in in every department in the whole company. Jamie also knows that Granddad has been grooming Mum for years to take over when he eventually retires; though she'd given up on field work about a year before Hannah was born, he still says that she's the best agent he's ever had.

Hannah. Jamie's eyes widen. "Do the girls know?"

Mum's expression turns to horror. "No, and you're not to tell them."

"Seriously? You're expecting me to keep this a secret? They deserve to know - we all deserved to know long before now."

"We've been trying to find a way to tell you since you and Aubrey became serious. It wasn't until you bought the ring that we realized exactly how serious."

"So, what? You're going to wait until the girls get engaged to tell them? You can't just do that!"

"Jamie, please stay calm."

"Calm? Calm?"

"There are billions of people on this planet, not all of whom would be comfortable with the idea of inter-species relationships. It was to protect all of you that we kept it secret."

"I can't believe this." Jamie jumps up from his chair, ignoring Mum when she calls after him, and heads for the lounge.

His younger sister Sarah is sitting on the sofa, chatting into her mobile when he walks up to her.

"Dad's an alien."

She looks up at him and then goes back to her conversation. Jamie takes the phone from her and disconnects the call. "I said Dad's an alien."

Sarah rolls her eyes at him. "Duh."

Looking over his shoulder to where their parents now stand at the doorway, Jamie can't even gather up a hint of smug indignation at their gobsmacked expressions. He turns back to his sister. "You knew?"

"Yeah. God, Jamie, where have you been? Of course Dad's an alien."

"How long have you known?"

"Ummm, only since I was about five. Now, can I have my mobile back?"

Mum comes forward and sits down on the sofa, taking Sarah's hand. "You sound awfully calm about this."

She shrugs. "It's kind of something I've lived with for a while. Besides, it's not like it matters, he's still _Dad_ , you know?" She looks over to where Dad stands, her voice betraying her sudden insecurity. "There's nothing weird about that, though, right? I mean, other than the whole alien thing. He _is_ still Dad?"

Dad is already nodding. "Oh definitely."

"Then what's the big deal?"

"Rose," Dad suggests gently before Mum has a chance to answer, "I think this has moved into 'family meeting' territory."

Mum deflates a little, and Jamie suddenly realizes that this has been her secret this whole time, despite the fact that Dad is the one who's an alien. "I think you're right."

Two days pass before everyone is available. Watching each of them walk into the house and quickly migrate to the kitchen where Mum has made tea, Jamie feels the weight of what he is about to do settle on his shoulders.

"It's not too late to back out of this," Dad says coming up behind him.

"They deserve to know." It has become a mantra since finding out himself. This is not a secret he can keep.

Dad's hand lands heavily on his shoulder. "Then let's get on with it."

They walk into the kitchen together and Dad calls everyone to order with a stern, "Jamie has something he'd like to say."

Chairs are found and Dad moves around the table to where Mum stands, stopping to bend and press kisses to the head of each of the girls who no longer live at home as he passes them.

Jamie fidgets. He hasn't exactly prepared a speech, thinking that the right words would just come to him when the time came. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Mum move closer to Dad, their hands twining together in a way that is as familiar to him as they are. Mum looks miserable, has ever since she'd told him about Dad. The velvet box, ever present in his pocket since he brought it home, weighs heavily on his conscience. He could keep Mum's secret, tell the girls about his plans to propose to Aubrey instead. They'd never know the difference.

"Get a move on," Hannah calls out. "Some of us have other places to be."

 _They deserve to know._ "Dad's an alien."

He doesn't know what he'd expected, outrage, disbelief, surprise, but the complete void of reaction from his sisters blows him away.

"I'm serious," he adds.

"And?" This from Holly.

"Yeah, come on, Jamie, tell us something we don't know," Sally says.

Sarah, for her part, looks smug.

"I think I figured it out when I realized that Dad doesn't have any family," Holly says. "I mean, Mum's got Nan and Granddad and Uncle Tony, but Dad's got no one."

Mum's hand leaves Dad's to snake around his waist, and she pulls him even closer.

Hannah leans back in her chair. "I think I figured it out when I was, like, ten. I mean, they work for a top secret government agency whose sole purpose is dealing with extraterrestrial life. The pieces were really easy to put together in that context."

"So what, you think Mum brought her work home with her?" Sarah asks.

As he watches his sisters detail all of the clues they'd picked up on that he had missed, Jamie looks up at his parents to see Mum bright red with embarrassment, her face partly turned into Dad's shoulder, and an amused but proud smile on Dad's face.

"-- because he is off-the-charts brilliant," Hannah concludes.

"Yeah, but despite the fact that it's Granddad's company, Torchwood would have only taken them if they were brilliant," Jamie rationalizes. "It doesn't mean he's an alien."

Holly had been nodding along with Hannah. "Sometimes it's almost like they can read our minds."

"Mother's intuition!" Jamie argues. "Especially being so smart..." He trails off when all four girls look at him like he's daft.

Sally giggles. "He eats jam out of the jar - with his fingers."

"That's perfectly normal behavior!" Dad interjects, earning him a stern glance from Mum and more than one raised eyebrow from the girls at the table.

"It's not like it isn't obvious. I mean, look at them. Mum and Uncle Tony could almost pass for the same age, and he's twenty-two years younger. I can't tell you how many times Mum and Hannah have been mistaken for sisters - not just by creepers, either. And I don't think Dad's aged at all."

"I just assumed they moisturize," Jamie protests weakly, not understanding _at all_ why this makes his parents break out in giggles.

"Mum calls Dad 'Doctor,' like it's his name or something."

"Every one of you knew," he says. "And not one of you thought to mention it?"

"It's just that thing we don't talk about. You know, like how Robbie's aunt's an alcoholic, but no one actually comes out and says she's an alcoholic. Dad's an alien."

"Oi, I'm not sure I like being compared to Robbie's aunt."

"You know what I mean, Dad."

Jamie slams his palm on the table. "Would you listen to yourselves? Does even one of you understand what this means?"

His sisters stare back at him.

Dad approaches the table. "We didn't keep it from you out of any malicious intent. In the beginning there was no guarantee that any other-than-human traits would ever manifest. In fact, the only thing we know for sure right now is that you'll probably have a slightly extended lifespan."

"Slightly extended, what does that mean? Five years? Ten?"

He bobs his head side to side and scratches his jaw the way he does when he's thinking. "Fifteen. Twenty."

"I'm preparing to ask the woman I love to marry me --" Jamie ignores the chorus of squeals from every female member of the family seated at the table, "-- and you're telling me the best information you can give me is that I'll probably outlive her by twenty years?"

"Maybe more. It's probably safest to say a minimum of twenty years. Unfortunately, there's no way to test for regenerative properties without risking --"

"Wait, hold on. What regenerative properties?"

Dad gives Mum a Look, the kind that is so significant it requires the capital letter.

Mum walks up to the table, too, and pulls out her chair. "Jamie, sit down. It's time we tell you about the day your father blew up my job."


End file.
